r/space • u/swordfi2 • 3d ago
SpaceX confirms first reuse of a Super Heavy booster for flight 9 of Starship. This booster was previously used on flight 7
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/190787666427447313296
u/HungryKing9461 3d ago
Bittersweet, 'cos it'll be the first caught and the first reflown, which is amazing, but will be landed in the Gulf -- they won't re-catch it due to the re-entry tests they want to perform.
So it won't end up being a museum piece.
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u/AgreeableEmploy1884 2d ago
B-14 not being caught again is just a rumor. I wouldn't believe anything until SpaceX releases the mission profile.
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u/Aussie18-1998 3d ago
Does this mean I'm going to have to prepare myself for Reddits bullshiterry about it failing to land back at the pad again and how it's not really reusable?
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u/Arcani63 2d ago
“This thing sucks actually. Btw, I’m saying this mostly because I hate Elon and I just can’t see how this has created a mental filter in my brain for everything connected to him in any way.”
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u/ropobipi 1d ago
The amount of Elon Musk cock riding on this sub is nauseating. The fact he will continue to be enriched by space ventures is a net negative to all of humanity, period.
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u/Joezev98 1d ago
The fact he will continue to be enriched by space ventures is a net negative to all of humanity, period.
That doesn't change a thing about the missions being succesful. If they don't aim for a catch attempt and it ends up landing in the Gulf of Mexico, then that is a succesful mission. Yet the reddit hivemind will still go wild about how much of a failure it supposedly is.
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u/No-Belt-5564 1d ago
Tough luck, he built a company that does something everyone said was impossible. He put all his money in it, managed to convince enough people to finance it, hired the right people and had the drive to keep going when it wasn't going well. If it had failed it would have been a major net negative for humanity, anybody could have done it but no one else had the balls. I'm sad for you if you're so deep in hate and propaganda that you can't even see basic facts
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u/SirBulbasaur13 2d ago
Yeah honestly I was surprised to see the top comment here stating why they’re actually not catching it.
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u/SpaceIsKindOfCool 3d ago
The boosters that launch the Moon and Mars landing starships will make for better museum pieces anyway.
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u/HungryKing9461 3d ago
They'll be workhorses, though. Maybe once they retire, but Superheavy is being designed to fly a lot.
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u/hogtiedcantalope 3d ago
So it won't end up being a museum piece.
Well not in a supermarine museum anyway.
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u/JasterPH 2d ago
The sea landed ones can’t be recovered? Or is it goning to be intentionally destroyed
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u/ACCount82 3d ago
I did not expect the first booster reflight to happen before the first Starship cargo flight, but here we are.
If this works, they'll have a turnaround of about 6 months on Starship first stage reusability - even with this early design that's not optimized for rapid reusability, with engine swaps that had to be carried out. Falcon 9 reusability took a year to get there.
Pulling it off would certainly put more oomph into SpaceX's iterative development, and make all their Starship ramp up plans a lot less crazy.
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u/Martianspirit 2d ago
Turn around time on this booster includes most thorough investigation, because it is first. By no means an indication of future turn around time.
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u/StagedC0mbustion 3d ago
The whole program relies on booster reuse. This is entirely expected IMO
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u/P4t13nt_z3r0 3d ago
This. Falcon 9 without reusability is still a really good rocket. Starship without reusability is not very useful other than being used as an occasional super heavy. They'll want reusability as soon as possible.
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u/redstercoolpanda 2d ago
I would say having a still relatively cheep rocket capable to delivering over 100 tons of payload is an extremely useful rocket to have. Remember starship is still extremely cheap expendable compared to rockets of similar class like SLS.
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u/akeean 2d ago
Even the theoretically higher payload payload would not be that much of the game changer compared to the ability to launch larger diameter sections for an ISS replacement.
A lot of space projects had to accept a large number of points of failure to origami their payloads into the fairings of smaller rockets, and more than a few missions failed because things didn't successfully folded out as they should. James Webs unfurling mechanism had over 300 single points of failure due that alone.
So a large diameter rocket, provided it can bring the thing into orbit and with enough velocity is already something useful.
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u/Joezev98 1d ago
I wonder how cheap and fast they could crank out non-reusable boosters. They don't need the gridfins, no catch points, don't need the fuel for boostback and landing, so could be made shorter and possibly fewer engines.
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u/svxr 3d ago
Yep, it’s also the one part of the rocket most similar to an existing F9 booster. A clean slate stage 2 was always going to be the challenge to deliver.
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u/Martianspirit 2d ago
The shuttle is proof that second stage reuse is possible in principle. Now only make it 200 times cheaper, at least.
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u/Tokey_Tokey 3d ago
Huge if successful. Best to those working hard on this project.
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u/JayRogPlayFrogger 3d ago
This will make the test flights much cheaper! If block 2 keeps blowing up not having to build and fly more and more boosters is such a win.
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u/mrparty1 3d ago
Hoping this next ship had enough time to prepare better fixes (or mitigations) to be successful on flight 9! I have heard rumors that it will be a lot more struts in the plumbing, hopefully working until they can correct the root cause and reduce that weight from the reinforcements.
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u/Decronym 2d ago edited 21h ago
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| FAA | Federal Aviation Administration |
| SLS | Space Launch System heavy-lift |
| ULA | United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture) |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Raptor | Methane-fueled rocket engine under development by SpaceX |
| Starlink | SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation |
| cryogenic | Very low temperature fluid; materials that would be gaseous at room temperature/pressure |
| (In re: rocket fuel) Often synonymous with hydrolox | |
| hydrolox | Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer |
| iron waffle | Compact "waffle-iron" aerodynamic control surface, acts as a wing without needing to be as large; also, "grid fin" |
| regenerative | A method for cooling a rocket engine, by passing the cryogenic fuel through channels in the bell or chamber wall |
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
7 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 15 acronyms.
[Thread #11227 for this sub, first seen 4th Apr 2025, 04:58]
[FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
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u/Minute-Solution5217 3d ago
That's good, but i hope the ship doesn't explode. And gets to orbit. And maybe gets back. But still then there's so much left to do
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u/moderngamer327 2d ago
It’s already gone a few seconds away from orbit several times
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u/Minute-Solution5217 2d ago
But didn't. And didn't deliver any payload
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u/Upset_Ant2834 2d ago
V1 was more than capable of reaching orbit multiple times. The only reason they didn't is because the FAA didn't allow them to since they're test flights. That's like saying a car is so slow just because it's following the speed limit lol
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u/moderngamer327 2d ago
Do you really think there is any difference in what they did and keeping the engines on 2 seconds longer?
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2d ago
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u/moderngamer327 2d ago edited 2d ago
No they didn’t actually. All flights planned so far have purposefully not wanted to go orbital for safety. I don’t know where you got your information that they were trying to to go orbital
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u/dr4d1s 2d ago
Considering V2 keeps blowing up seconds away from completing their burns, yes.
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u/moderngamer327 2d ago
V1 didn’t have that issue and so far it’s only been two rockets that have had this issue
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3d ago
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u/Adeldor 3d ago
The Saturn V was an astonishing vehicle, doubly so given how it was developed in the 60s. However, there are caveats:
They had a huge budget relative to SpaceX (inflation adjusted)
The Saturn V was near half the mass and thrust
The Saturn V was not reusable
The 2nd launch, while reaching orbit, was not a success per the original plan. It suffered bad pogo, and miswiring caused the wrong motor to shut down.
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u/Martianspirit 2d ago
The Saturn V was an astonishing vehicle
But their first and second stage always crashed on landing.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon 3d ago
The Saturn V was the culmination of a development path that began almost 30 years earlier with the V2, then Jupiter and Redstone; it's pretty disingenuous to say that it just appeared ready to go.
The F-1 engine development was pretty protracted, not unlike Raptor.
The budget for these efforts was also rather different.
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u/Underwater_Karma 3d ago edited 3d ago
Were you asleep for all of 2024 and 4 successful starship launches in a row?
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u/ilikedmatrixiv 2d ago
Almost all of them blew up. Funny how that is considered a success with you guys.
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u/JapariParkRanger 2d ago
Name a successful rocket that didn't crash or explode.
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u/ilikedmatrixiv 2d ago
Have you heard of the Saturn V?
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u/JapariParkRanger 2d ago
First stage crashed into the ocean, third stage smacked into the moon. No part of it was spared.
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u/ilikedmatrixiv 2d ago
Yes, and it was all planned that way.
Are you telling me all the starships exploding were planned to explode?
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u/JapariParkRanger 2d ago
All starships have been planned to crash into the ocean and not be recovered, yes.
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u/Funktapus 2d ago
Boy I wish this wasn’t a company controlled by Elon Musk so I could wish them success.
But alas, I hope this project is a miserable failure.
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u/StickiStickman 1d ago
Do people writing comments like this not realize how they just sound like bitter idiots?
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u/yer_fucked_now_bud 3d ago
It will be really interesting when the commercial passenger phase of this mission begins, considering people don't even want to sit in a Tesla at the moment. I would imagine at this point, if Musk does not relinquish ownership and control, the Starship passenger manifests may end up being a glorified (and vertically mobile) prayer breakfast invitation list.
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u/barcoder___ 3d ago
Before Starship will have any commercial passengers onboard, we will probably be 10-20 years further, and Starship will have 1000's of flights under it's belt. More than enough time to build a solid safety record and make it a super reliable vehicle.
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u/TMWNN 3d ago
It will be really interesting when the commercial passenger phase of this mission begins, considering people don't even want to sit in a Tesla at the moment.
Don't confuse Reddit with real life.
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u/GalNamedChristine 3d ago
Tesla has lost popularity outside of reddit. Maybe not as much as a scroll on the popular tab would have you believe, but Tesla shares only now started recovering after it came out elons leaving doge, and a lot of people in the EU became disillusioned with them
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u/Martianspirit 2d ago
Yeah, bright idea that hate campaign, that opens the market for China. Because other US companies are not able to compete.
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u/GalNamedChristine 2d ago
I'm no fan of china, but Chinese EV's are catching up fast to American and European ones, at a better price. You can't blame a hate campaign for Teslas mistakes, considering they haven't made a new regular model since the Tesla Y and spend a bunch of money on the cybertruck which was clowned on near universally and had a bunch of issues. You also can't blame a hate campaign on Elons direct actions.
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u/Martianspirit 2d ago
Sure, it is only Teslas fault that cars and dealerships and charging stations are burning.
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u/GalNamedChristine 2d ago
Elons actions caused shareholders to run away, and before that Tesla had issues with the cybertruck and their regular series' last car which is half a decade old at this point, the cybertruck also has safety and production line issues. Did the vandalising of Tesla which started in the last month cause that? If Elon wants to spread the great Replacement theory, side with AFD and say "Germany should forget it's past" and do a "roman salute", he shouldn't be surprised people start drawing "roman Street art" on his cars.
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u/SPWoodworking 2d ago
Such an ugly rocket. We shouldn't even be using spacex.
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u/vitalfir 2d ago
The aesthetics of a rocket don't really matter, and they have a reliable track record
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u/HAL9001-96 2d ago
damn they might ifnally catch up to where they already were in 2017
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u/moderngamer327 2d ago
Do you know just how much bigger the super heavy booster is? Also it’s being caught with chopsticks which is even more difficult
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u/HAL9001-96 2d ago
mass does not equal technical difficulty in fact htere's a few thigns making it easier but hey, if reading oen number is the full extent of your technical comprehension then you do you I guess
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u/moderngamer327 2d ago
Mass does actually mean more difficulty when rockets are involved
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u/HAL9001-96 2d ago
it would make things more difficult if your goal was to make each launc hteh same cost or to make it work with the smae amount of fuel but thats insane and has nothign to do with reality
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u/moderngamer327 2d ago
You’re ignoring other factors that a rocket with increased mass causes. For example you need more engines which means more heat which you have to deal with. There is a reason we developed smaller rockets first. The same goes for larger airplanes
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u/HAL9001-96 2d ago
which fit under a larger rocket
heat management from rocket engiens doesn't really work like that, they're regneeratively cooled so it comes down to thermal leakage you don't really need to cool the madditionally, even then since the rocket engien still ahs a simialr corss sectio nand the rocket got mostly wider not taller you'd be looking at a square square law not a square cube law
in case you need help with this square and square are the same thing
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u/moderngamer327 2d ago
On a larger rocker you are going to have more engines surrounding other engines leading to an increase in temperatures. Having more engines also increases the pluming required
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u/HAL9001-96 2d ago
do you know how regenerative cooling works?
with 9 engines you already have oen engine completely surrounded by other engiens whci his a bit of a pain for equipment on the engine but it doesn'T really accumulate further, they're NOT primarily radiatively cooled and hte main parts of hte ngiens don't run hotter cause they have to transmit their heat htoruhg all the other engiens to the surface, they are cooled by the fuel they are about to use
you do need more pluming but geuss what oyu have more cross section to run it through as well so in the end that jsut means more cost and more mass duh
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u/moderngamer327 2d ago
I’m aware of what regenerative cooling is but that doesn’t change that you have more sources of heat generation than you did before. Instead of having one engine that you have to cool you now have an engine you have to cool surrounded by other engines giving off heat. The fact you cool it with the fuel doesn’t change that.
But having more cross sectional area doesn’t change the fact you’ve now increased the complexity
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u/HAL9001-96 2d ago
the main factos for orcket size are cost and demand really
falcon 9 is already oversized for most missions, why build something much bigger?
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u/CollegeStation17155 2d ago
Ask ULA why they built Vulcan or Blue origin about New Glenn or Arianespace why they replaced the 5 with version 6… all of which are bigger than Falcon.
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u/HAL9001-96 2d ago
for airplanes you get structural issues but that is mostly about wingspan and owudl apply to rocket height but not diameter
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u/HAL9001-96 2d ago
uh no
well not like that
the rockets heavier
it carries more fuel
it actualyl ahs a greater fuel margin and an easier slowing maneuver
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u/CollegeStation17155 2d ago
And with more engines that can throttle more deeply, it can hover rather than have to do the suicide slam at exactly the right time that the Falcons do.
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u/HAL9001-96 2d ago
*I wish reddit was as obsessed with beign right about basic logical thought as it is with spelling
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u/HAL9001-96 2d ago
uh
falcon 9 has an leo payload mass of 13800-22800kg depending on reusability mode
ariane 6 has a paylaod mass of 10350 to 21650kg depending on version
its almost like there are certain ranges of useful payloads
maybe we should calssify those or something
falcon heavy rarely flies
falcon 9 almost always carries several paylaods
so did ariane 5
saturn v was built but not used to launch any commerical satellites
clearly the reason big rockets rarely get built is not the impossibility but simply the cost and lack of demand
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u/ActGlad1791 2d ago
boooom goes another $700 million dollars of tax payers money. somebody call DOGE! oh, wait...
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u/FlyingRock20 3d ago
Very cool, pretty awesome that these boosters are getting reused.